IS QUAKE II RTX WORTH IT HOW TO
IS QUAKE II RTX WORTH IT 1080P

Given the amount of wood, glass, and marble you see in Control, this adds up to a lot of extra visual complexity. Polished non-glass surfaces like marble will give a partial reflection, while surfaces like varnished wood will clearly bounce the light.

Control’s brutalist architecture demonstrates this very well. Any surface that’s smooth or glossy enough to partially reflect light will be affected. It’s not just pure reflective surfaces that this affects either. You also get compound multi-bounce reflections, where two panes of glass will reflect off one another, producing that “infinite tunnel” effect you’ll often see showcased at science museums.

With RTX on, surfaces like puddles on the floor, glass windows, and even the protective glass panes of picture frames start to bounce back detailed reflections of the world based on the angle you’re viewing them from. The most significant of these is reflections. That being said, there are specific areas where RTX makes a noticeable difference in the game.

IS QUAKE II RTX WORTH IT 1080P

With or without RTX, playing Control at 1080p or higher with all settings maxed out is still going to look amazing.

Consequently, we already have bespoke, localised solutions for dynamic lighting and shadows, ambient occlusion, soft shadows, day/night cycle lighting adjustments, crepuscular rays, and so on.

IS QUAKE II RTX WORTH IT HOW TO

Developers have spent years figuring out how to replicate the “natural” look of materials under specific light sources without having an all-purpose global lighting simulation. This is because modern games have become very good at faking what ray tracing does for real, particularly when it comes to lighting. The relatively sparse geometry of Quake II’s world means the ray tracing is always front and centre.īy comparison, the effect of ray tracing in Control is less immediately obvious. Also, Quake II RTX effectively demonstrates how ray tracing simulates dynamic light changes, from blaster shots casting a moving orb of light down long, dark corridors, to explosive canisters briefly turning a room bright orange. With RTX on, textures and materials appear much softer and brighter coloured than in the original version. With Quake II, the effect of RTX is immediately apparent, mainly because Quake II’s lighting and texturing is so basic compared to modern games.

As it turns out, my first impressions of the effectiveness of ray tracing in both games was quite different. I’ve played Quake II many times over the years, and I reviewed Control just over a month ago. I picked Quake II and Control because I have a clear idea of how both games look without ray tracing. This is by no means neither a scientific test of ray tracing’s effectiveness nor a thorough benchmarking of the hardware it’s just a broad consideration of how ray tracing affects the look of virtual worlds and what improvements it offers over existing graphics tech. From affecting how different materials look, to creating realistic reflections and achieving that seemingly impossible goal of real-time global illumination, the potential ramifications of real-time ray-tracing are enormous.īut what’s the reality? I’ve spent the past couple of days mucking about in Quake II RTX and Remedy’s Control to get an idea of how RTX alters the overall experience, and I thought I’d share my initial impressions. The ability to dynamically simulate how light bounces off objects is fundamental in creating a realistic-looking world. In theory, real-time ray tracing is the holy-grail of graphical realism. Has there been a technology that felt like such a leap forward since hardware acceleration? Physics? HDR? DirectX 9? I’ve been racking my brain to think of a moment that seemed equally significant, or at least one that was marketed as such. It’s like being 10 again, except I’m not glancing over my shoulder in case my parents discover me playing a gory FPS that’s entirely unsuitable for my age. I’m blowing barrels up despite there being no nearby enemies, just to see how it affects the light levels in the room.

Only this time I’m cooing as the laser blast from my starting pistol illuminates a hallway, and staring into a pool of water as it reflects the sky above me. It felt almost like a magic trick, like I was suddenly looking at a different game.Ģ2 years later, it’s all happening again. I actually remember running Quake II with a graphics card for the first time (I can’t remember which card, sadly) and marvelling as the scuzzy, brownish frames suddenly became crisp and smooth. It was a watershed moment, the point where games began to move aware from software-rendering as default, making graphics cards a necessity instead of a novelty. When Quake II launched at the end of 1997, it was one of the first games to launch with support for hardware-acceleration out of the box. It’s odd to see a game become a flagship for the future of graphics technology twice.

Is quake ii rtx worth it